What is considered deception in experimental economics?

Abstract

In experimental economics there is a norm against using deception. But precisely what constitutes deception is unclear. While there is a consensus view that providing false information is not permitted, there are also “gray areas” with respect to practices that omit information or are misleading without an explicit lie being told. In this paper, we report the results of a large survey among experimental economists and students concerning various specific gray areas. We find that there is substantial heterogeneity across respondent choices. The data indicate a perception that costs and benefits matter, so that such practices might in fact be appropriate when the topic is important and there is no other way to gather data. Compared to researchers, students have different attitudes about some of the methods in the specific scenarios that we ask about. Few students express awareness of the no-deception policy at their schools. We also briefly discuss some potential alternatives to “gray-area” deception, primarily based on suggestions offered by respondents.

Gender differences in guilt aversion in Korea and the United Kingdom

“…This approach looks like deception. There is a strong norm against the use of deception in experimental economics; however, according to Charness et al 50 , precisely what constitutes deception is unclear, and they argued against a blanket ban, calling for a more nuanced view. Specifically, they mentioned that there is support for deception when the data are important, especially if this will not greatly impact any subject pool in the future.…”

Gender and deception: Evidence from survey data among adolescent gamblers

“…In the literature, lying and deception are often considered synonymous and used interchangeably (e.g., Childs, 2012Childs, , 2013Dreber & Johannesson, 2008;Dugar et al, 2019;Erat, 2013;Gneezy, 2005;Gylfason et al, 2013), with a slight predominance of the former term (e.g., in lab experiments; Gneezy et al, 2018;Ben-Ner & Hu, 2021). However, recent contributions have defined and proven a clean difference between the two terms (e.g., Charness et al, 2021;Sobel, 2020). Sobel (2020) defines a lie as a statement that the sender knows to be false, and no evaluation of the implications of the lie-the motivation of the sender, the consequences for the receiver-is considered.…”

Deception about study purpose does not affect participant behavior

“…Jamison et al 14 found no differences between participants who had or had not been deceived, though they did find some weak evidence that deceived women were less likely to participate in future experiments than were undeceived women. Further, in a survey of predominantly American students, 25% reported that they would be less willing to participate in future experiments if they knew they had been deceived 16 .…”

“…Experimental deception comes in many forms and there is often disagreement as to what precisely can be identified as deception 16 , 24 . Sieber et al’s 25 taxonomy identifies eight types of deception, from stating a false purpose to not informing subjects that they are part of a study.…”

“…Jamison et al 14 found no differences between participants who had or had not been deceived, though they did find some weak evidence that deceived women were less likely to participate in future experiments than were undeceived women. Further, in a survey of predominantly American students, 25% reported that they would be less willing to participate in future experiments if they knew they had been deceived 16 .Independent of the source of concern and whether it is supported by empirical evidence, there are tangible negative consequences for economics researchers using deception. Perhaps the most notable is that articles deploying deception are not eligible for publication in economics journals 17 -a policy that is sometimes explicitly stated (e.g., Experimental Economics 18 ).…”